Succession in tourism familiy business: The motivation of succeeding family members

The paper deals with succession processes in tourism family enterprises. Beginning with a literature review on succession in family firms, the paper focuses on the motivation structure of successors and his/her perceived problems associated with succession in family enterprises. A survey carried out in the Italian Alps during 2003 analyses ex‐post evaluations of succession processes by successors. In a first attempt, the author establishes the importance of family business succession research in terms of the available literature. Relevant succession models to be found in the social sciences literature are discussed in order to deduce relevant research questions for the empirical study at hand. The focus of the paper is an analysis of success in family firms succession processes, based on varying motivation structures (factors) of the successor.